We've all been brought up with the view that religion has some kind of special privileged status. You're not allowed to criticise it.

I am at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breathtaking inanity of the content.

I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden

By dislaiming the idea of a next life, we can take more excitement in this one!

Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.

There's a natural tendency for children to, in some sense, inherit the cultural values of their parents. I'm not against that, that's fine, that's wonderful. What I am against is labelling. Nobody ever labels a child a cricketer because his father is a cricketer, but they do label a child a Catholic because his parents are Catholic. I think it's more or less unique. Nobody ever labels a child a socialist or a conservative or a liberal because that's what their parents are.

We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.